Well, this post should leave me speechless. Yet somehow I'm not completely surprised.

"most rapists aren’t sociopaths. Unfortunately, they’re “normal� guys. "

Yeah, so your typical guy is just a rapist waiting to happen! Unbelievable. There's a name for that kind of talk--it's called Hate Speech.

Way to twist words. I'm not saying all guys are rapists-in-training, and you know it. I'm saying that because rape is so ingrained in our culture, you don't have to be a sociopath to commit it. Give me a break.

You know, few things make me angrier than being told that I am a rapist in waiting. Which, to anyone with at least basic reading comprehension skills, you won't find in this post. The pages of the WSJ and the NYT is, unfortunately, another matter entirely.

I'm saying that because rape is so ingrained in our culture, you don't have to be a sociopath to commit it. Give me a break.

I'm a man who totally agrees with you. The "traditional values" that anti-feminists praise reject the legitimacy of a woman's desire for sex, and view sex with a woman as an object she's selling and that a man is trying to buy, or trick her out of, or take.

Anti-feminists think that a "return to traditional values" somehow prevents rape, but it's those very values that train men into thinking that rape is simply one more tool in the chest for getting women to have sex with you. You don't have to be a sociopath to rape. Entirely normal men can be rapists. Part of it is that no man wants to think of himself as "doing that" to a woman, or think of his buddies that way; part of it is the avaliability of rape survivor narratives that speak to the stupefying horror and evil of rape.

This shouldn't surprise us. The Nazis didn't turn open their prisons for guards for the concentration camps; they were just normal Germans in the perfectly wrong circumstance. Famous sociological experiments such as the Stanford Prison Experiment prove that entirely normal people will do entirely wrong things in the right (or wrong) situation.

You know, few things make me angrier than being told that I am a rapist in waiting.

You know, I don't even know you, which is why I don't feel too bad about what I'm going to tell you. And it's going to dismay and anger you. And I'm a man, too, so what I'm about to say to you, I assume someone out there, even yourself, might just as well apply it to me.

Given the right situation, the right triggers, and enough people around you telling you it was ok and the right thing to do and you should do it - odds are, you'd rape a woman. Or shove someone into a gas chamber. Or brutally abuse a prisoner under your care - even if you knew it was all a simulated experiment. I mean, what else should I conclude from the fact that the vast majority of humans seem to do exactly that in those situations?

I might do it too. I wish I could say that I was confident that I wouldn't, but I'm not. The odds are definately not in my favor. The best I can expect to do is learn to avoid the "Stanford situation", because the evidence indicates that it simply doesn't matter much what kind of person you are in those situations. Almost all of us develop our ideas about conduct from our peers, and the degree to which we believe our responsibility is abrogated by orders from authority.

But you'd have to be pretty naive to believe that this is a world where the moral platitutes you express from your computer chair actually are able to control your behavior in every possible situation.

Right. Because re-educating men and teaching them the difficult-to-comprehend lesson that rape is wrong is just silly. Much better that women live in constant fear and steer clear of public places after dusk.

I can't wait to read Ms. Riley's thoughts on the Entwistle case. "Most murders of women are perpetrated by their husbands or boyfriends. Yet women like Rachel Entwistle persist in marrying men."

You were right here:

I don’t think most rapists aren’t sociopaths.

and fell astray here:

I'm saying that because rape is so ingrained in our culture, you don't have to be a sociopath to commit it.

Rape falls dead hand square within the definition of sociopathy. I don't know who you spend time with to believe that rape is normative, but it ain't like that.

Yeah, so your typical guy is just a rapist waiting to happen! Unbelievable. There's a name for that kind of talk--it's called Hate Speech.

Suggesting that "most rapists aren’t sociopaths. Unfortunately, they’re 'normal' guys." amounts to saying "all/most normal guys are/will be rapists" is like saying "most cats are things that have fur" amounts to "all/most things that have fur are things that are cats".

Right. Because re-educating men and teaching them the difficult-to-comprehend lesson that rape is wrong is just silly. Much better that women live in constant fear and steer clear of public places after dusk.

Or drink, or hang out with guy friends, or...
Exactly. But, you know, tragula's post actually demonstrated another problem: people don't like to hear about how certain people do bad things (in this case, men), rather just want to tell you how to prevent it. For example, you get those men (and women) who say, "hey, stay away from these guys; I/we don't know how they'll act", "don't go in there alone with all those men 'cause something bad might happen", "you shouldn't go there with them, you don't know what they'll do" and so on and so on.

So then ... we can to be told that some man - somehow, somewhere, some way - may rape, but bring up the fact that it is usually men that rape and perhaps addressing it head-on by studying the social conductors, its offensive and means you think all men are rapists. Kind of like a weird having it both ways deal.

You know, I thought that Imette St. Guillen was pretty much exempt from the usual dragging through the mud to which rape victims are usually subjected. She was attacked by a stranger, so she can't be accused of "leading him on", and she was murdered, so she can't be accused of lying about the whole thing. But since she was out by herself at an unseemly hour for a lady, apparently she's fair game.

David, I fully agree.
Women are blamed "You shouldn't have gone alone with that man, you know rape was a possibility"
But when women heed that sentiment by considering all men as potential rapists, they are blamed for having that thought too.

Some men may be highly impulsive/aggresive AND have a lack of empathy in certain situations. (Potential rapists.) If these men sometimes fall short of being full blown sociopaths, they have certainly taken a few steps in the right direction.

But they don't represent the majority of men. And shouldn't be considered "normal".

my god u are so cynical. most guys are not rapists. Sure, it may seem mmany or most species reproduce by rape, but that is not what today's man is all bout. Rape is not at all ingrained in our culture. That is nonsense. It is the work of a few rogue individuals.

on second thought, given the way feminists have dumbed down rape, well, who knows? Isn't just sticking your dick in now considered rape under all circumstances???

Without digging into the nature of evil with both feet (where an honest assessment of what we are tells us that members of both genders are capable of doing absolutely anything), I think the more serious problem is that young adult male culture does not take rape seriously.

I remember visiting what was supposed to be a humor board not long ago and seeing a link to a video of a "hottie" who, the description said, had been "taken advantage of" at a party. Curious (but not curious enough to watch the video), I read the comments. Judging by the gleeful, violently misogynistic language (I'm sure any woman who runs a high-traffic feminist web site knows exactly what I'm talking about), it was exactly what it sounded like--either rape, or pornography filmed to resemble rape. This site gets hundreds of thousands of hits every week.

Why didn't the young men who made up that community raise hell? Because this was a site frequented by college fratboys, very much, I guess, like the lacrosse players at Duke. And this is epidemic. It is everywhere. When these men get a little older, most of them will probably join the 20 to 30 percent of men who have battered their wives or girlfriends--or the additional 20 or 30 percent who knew about it and didn't talk.

Institutional sexism is a disease. All men are patients. The sooner men recognize that, the better the odds they'll stay on their meds.

Cheers,

TH

Felix, I have to say I agree with you. While I do think it's reprehensible that women aren't always safe, I also think it's reprehensible for women to feel like they should take a risk because they SHOULD be safe, because that's how the world should be. (And it really should.)

When I tell my friends to watch their drinks at bars, am I blaming the girl who got roofied and raped? No! I'm actually blaming the disgusting excuse for a human being who thought it was acceptable. But I think we can agree that rape is so awful that if anything can be done to prevent it, it should be done.

That said, men should be educated about rape. I like One in Four.

I remember about 15, 16 years ago, National Review did a big section on frat-party rapes, the gist of which was, honest to God, to blast feminists for saying that women should avoid getting so drunk their judgment was impaired, shouldn't go upstairs with strangers, etc. My God, don't feminists know women drink so they'll lose their inhibitions? Do those killjoys want to take us back to the days when women lived in cloistered dorms?
As to the WSJ article, since when did feminists encourage women to binge drink? Oh, wait, all that stuff about how women should get equal pay and take any job they're qualified, for, drinking was the subtext.
For that matter, I read a recent article reporting a recent guy-on-guy rape following a dose of roofies at a bar. I would lay money no such case will ever generate this kind of warning to guys in the pages of WSJ.

Chet is my husband. And he's more man than you'll ever be, because he realizes that manhood as absolutely nothing to do with women.

Most rapists aren't normal guys. Those that commit date rape are typically also bullies and all-round thugs.

We have to realise that women are usually smaller and weaker so they have to be more cautious. Buy a gun, learn to fight.

Given the right situation, the right triggers, and enough people around you telling you it was ok and the right thing to do and you should do it - odds are, you'd rape a woman. Or shove someone into a gas chamber. Or brutally abuse a prisoner under your care

Never happen, except under actual duress. The again I flout authority daily.

If I man gets so drunk he is incapacitated, then he does have to take responsibility for that. Same if he goes into a dangerous place and gets attacked. This doesn't mean someone is entitled to assault him, but simply that he takes responsibility for inviting danger.

Men may not get raped often, but they're the ones that get beaten up in the street and bars.

Wow! So this is where all the male-hating "womyn" come to push their ridiculous rhetoric. We're no more being in a "culture of rape" than being in a "culture of lesbians." Kudos to Chet's wife! It's nice to know that real women still exist and aren't afraid of standing up to feminist rhetoric and fantasy.

"Rape is part of our culture; it’s normalized to the point where men who are otherwise decent guys will rape and not even think that it’s wrong. And that’s what terrifies me."

What I got out of this was that rape is so ingrained in our culture that many men will commit rape and never even understand that was they did was rape.

Can anyone offer verified statistics on the real incidence of drug-assisted rape?

I know GHB was banned sometime ago for allegedly being a date rape drug, but can't find any evidence of it ever having been used as such. Not that banning it is going to make any difference. No doubt it remains readily available and I'm sure someone planning a rape isn't going to be all that concerned about breaking a stupid drug law.

Posted by Nymphalidae: "Chet is my husband. And he's more man than you'll ever be, because he realizes that manhood as absolutely nothing to do with women."

Now, let's look at the "logic" of this statement. He's "more man," meaning that there are degrees to being a man. Some are more, some are less. And, by logical extension, some might not be at all. Now, knowing as we all do, that western culture is dependent on dichotomous structures, what is the antonym for "man?" Ahh, yes, that would be woman.

We may now proceed to the statement that chet "understands that manhood has nothing to do with women."
Well, it has everything to do with women. To define this concept in our society, depending on dichotomies, contrast must be given. Hence what is masculine or manly is not feminine or womanly. The definitions are interdependent, change over time and culture, and cannot exist without the "other".

Pretty simple.

May I suggest, Oh wife of Chad, that you do a bit more thinking?

And as for you, Nice Guy, two things. Lauding someone like chad's wife indicates that you, in your conformation to stereotypes, prefer women who cannot form a rational thought. This, of course, exposes the fact that you are not a "nice guy," but are rather a typical little cad, like the choice of your moniker didn't already expose that. What a surprise!

Much better that women live in constant fear and steer clear of public places after dusk.

THANK YOU for posting that. I am so sick of this idea that the "correct" response to a rape having happened is to cower in terror in your bedroom in the attic or some such. Or (possibly worse?), never to go out without a male escort. I saw so much of this among my coworkers last year, when a rape occurred near our place of employment -- suddenly people who lived two blocks away were having their husbands/boyfriends/brothers drive them to work, even refusing to go to the grocery store or some such without a male in tow, and all coming together and talking about how they were being "smart" about the situation. Scary stuff.

But if you suggest to these people that women are held back financially because they don't feel safe taking jobs that require a nighttime commute, they shrug their shoulders and say, hey, if women aren't willing to take risks, of course they'll be paid less.

And then there are liberal men who not only blame women who get raped for taking unnecessary risks, but also castigate them as paranoid, possibly racist or classist right-wingers when they take precautions like driving everywhere at night and not going through high-crime areas. We cannot win.

And when a white yuppy gets assaulted in a gentrifying neighborhood, the yuppy showed a lack of common sense which is deplorable?

Also, we should all be terrified of people who are different than us, and strangers, and assume that they will harm us, so we should never go out.

Everyone should show common sense, but it's quite possible to show common sense while out drinking late. And even if you don't, we want to live in a society where people won't take advantage of it. And taking those risks are the risks of integration - by class, race, & gender - so if you're going argue against taking those risks, admit you support segregation.

so if you're going argue against taking those risks, admit you support segregation.

I think that's going a little too far. In a city that's already segregated, I'm often going to avoid being alone in areas where I stand out because of my ethnicity as someone who's an outsider and possibly lost or unfamiliar with the area. That doesn't mean I support segregation, and it especially doesn't mean that I think that someone who behaves differently is being stupid. No matter how much a woman fears the threat of rape, it's going to be too much for some people and not enough for other people.

This doesn't mean someone is entitled to assault him, but simply that he takes responsibility for inviting danger.

Takes responsibility in what way? Opts not to press charges against a criminal? Doesn't make an effort to have more of a police presence in that area? Doesn't take part in a neighborhood watch program? Because he deserved to be assaulted because he did something risky?

I mean I guess I don't understand what you're talking about. What does he have to take "responsibility" for, and in what way are you expecting him to do that? Not testify against his attacker? What about the responsibility of that guy?

If a rape occurs, only the rapist is responsible. That's it. Women, like anybody else, are entitled to do anything that isn't against the law. Sometimes we're going to consider those acts stupid or pointlessly risky. Well, everybody is stupid and reckless sometimes. But if a woman gets raped, the responsibility for the rape lies with the rapist. No matter what the woman did, the rapist had the choice not to rape. What possible "responsibility" should the woman be expected to take? And in what manner do you expect her to take it?

Well, it has everything to do with women.

You're saying that gay men cannot be men? Or that they're actually women? Seems like you're the one who needs to do more thinking.

It's one thing to decide to minimize the risks to oneself - certainly we all do that to some degree. There are places I don't walk at night (few), and many where I walk somewhat quickly, purposefully, and alertly (many more).

Similarly, there are women who might decide to leave the bar before it gets too late, or restrict their alcohol consumption, etc.

These are rational, fine decisions. BUT arguing that everyone else must make them, and arguing that their failure to make them is crucial in a discussion of criminal conduct against them, basically ends up being an argument for segregation, or at least less equality and less integration. A parent might talk to their kid about this, a friend might advise another friend. For pundits & commentators from the Party Built on Segregation to Argue for this strikes me as basically trying to encourage Segregation, and even suggesting that Integration is needlessly foolhardy.

Our society depends on dichotomies? Wow, here I thought we depended on empirical research building scientific & technical knowledge which improved our standards of living in a ever changing social context.

Also - by dichotomy, why can't the dichotomy be between Man and Child? I often think of things that way. I would say I'm more Man than many guys who are more Macho than I am. I know, I know - we could say "so-and-so is more Adult than you'll ever be." But who says that? No one. It doesn't mean we don't mean something along those lines.

Yeah, MDtoMN, I think we basically agree. Every woman takes precautions based on how comfortable she feels, and as a shy, unathletic woman, I probably take more than most, but I just assume that someone who takes more risks than I do has her own good reasons for being comfortable with that level of risk.

Jessica - I would like to argue that rapists are not 'normal' guys. Rapists might otherwise appear normal beyond an utterly deplorable act, but we must not accept this as normal. The inability to control one's reptilian impulses is indicative of illness, a weak-will, etc. - my point being that a human who isn't able to turn off or otherwise trump either the fuck or fight impulse has no business being called 'normal' whether or not their disposition qualifies as part of the majority.

It is imperative that we as humans (and especially in this case, men) do better, and to this end we must raise the bar, at the very least, to say that normative human behavior absolutely precludes rape.
I am a normal man and rape is antithetical to my nature (say it with me now, boys).
I do appreciate your point, though, and blaming the victim is in my view unconscionable. Call me what you will but I believe everyone has the right to fearlessly walk any street anywhere anytime without fear of another human - and until that happens, we must do more, try harder, be better.

"This doesn't mean someone is entitled to assault him, but simply that he takes responsibility for inviting danger."

Yet I have never seen a report of a robbery/assault on a man that concluded he was at least partially at fault (as implied in so many rape cases) for being out late, or alone after dark, etc. Yet nobody thinks twice before saying "she shouldn't have been out so late, alone, drinking, etc." I'd bet the farm that the rapist uses exactly that criteria to justify his actions- she's 'asking for it' because she's drunk, or perceived as promiscuous, etc.

And speaking of 'normal' guys, that's exactly how most of these guys were perceived. My best friend in college, who was a 'sensitive,' considerate, 'family values' guy with many female friends, once confided in me that he'd participated in a gang rape. The man who broke into our apartment when I was three, raped my mother, and nearly killed my father, was the 'nice guy' next door who we used to talk to in the morning when he walked his dog. There is no 'type' that one can point to and say "this is the guy." It's an anti-social act, to be sure- but the perpetrators aren't wild-eyed weirdos who lie in wait in the alleys, they are people we percieve as ordinary, even nice guys.

I am really not an Ann Coulter fan, but I don't disagree with what she is staying in terms of using common sense EXCEPT that people who put themselves in danger purely to entertain themselves or to pursue purile interests don't deserve to get in the lifeboat ahead of the WORKER who was trying to earn a living. We don't blame the DuPont workers for getting lung cancer from asbestos, we don't blame the factory worker for getting their hands caught in a machine, we don't blame the Chineese person who allowed himself to be lowered in a bucket with some dynamite over a gorge so we could have railroads (hence the expresssion, a Chinaman's chance), so why blame a sex worker for getting hurt in the line of duty? Given the amount of money in the porn industry, this seems to be a big and growing sector of the economy - why not protect the workers just like we have with railroads and factories? I'll tell you why - just like with Chineese railroad workers and Irish child factory workers, no one values these people, and would prefer not to think about their crummy wages and working conditions. It's a lot easier to demonize them (read old news papers and your jaw will drop at the way the Irish and Chineese are discusses and depicted in text and cartoons) than make sure they are treated fairly. After all, we got what we wanted - our manifest destiny, industrial domination, our lap dance. What's a few raped strippers, children dead in factory fires and blown up railroad workers along the way?

God help you poor American Men. In fact god help the women get over it girls life is a bitch whether you’re a man or a woman. In fact women take a deep gulp and for one second imagine what it is like to be a man if at all possible. Realise how better off you are being a woman because if you speak logic people will listen if you are full of hatred you will lose everything descent women have achieved. If you hate men and think women are different then if all women were born as men and all men were born as women you lot with this website would be the biggest bastards probably on death row.

No123, I don't see any expressions of hatred for men among these posts. I do see disapproval of sexual violence aganist all people and the cultural factors that encourage it. Don't really understand your post, but if I were a man with a mother and sisters I'd want an end to rape culture for sure.

Hi, I have posted as BMC90 here in the past and did NOT post the comment above. What gives?

Personally, I don't think all men are potential rapists. I do agree with TH though about how all men are students in the university of unlearning sexism. I also agree that women, in general, have to live their life in fear of being raped. I wouldnt say that for me it's an overwhelming fear, but its certainly one that i notice is there all the time as i am walking down an empty street. I have been lucky enough to have never felt scared or threatened in the date rape sort of way. Perhaps it is because I am very assertive to begin with, and I am not a tiny girl. I don't know. I am sure though there are plenty of girls like me who have been the vitims of date rape.

Since no one is jumping forward to clear up the identity crisis, I guess it will just have to be clear from the langague of this post that I did not write the above screed seemingly attributed to me. For those who seem a bit challenged by the concept of rape culture think about it like lynching used to be. Sure it was never strictly 'legal' to lynch, and sometimes people surely got in trouble for it, however, 'culturally' it was considered acceptable in some American communities (at that time, geographic - more complicated with mass media and internet now). By "acceptable" I mean that average community members attended lynchings, law enforcement officers did as well, the perps were rarely arrested or prosecuted, and there was a wide and widely dissiminated body of literature and photography depicting the practice in an approving way. We are fighting rape culture in the same way the civil rights movement had to fight lynching as a practice. There are too many people who 'get women drunk on purpose' and brag about it with no consequences. There are too many images of women in sexual situations they appear not to be consenting to ciruclated in mainstream media with no disapproval, with the graphic and violent nature of the images increasing with certain types of media, and there are too many instances of people reinforcing all this by speaking deprecatingly of women and the 'danger' feminists (women who deny that others have agency over their bodies) pose to society. Lynching did not happen without widespread propaganda against blacks - we have the same thing now called pornography. I'm not going to get drawn into the sex positive/sex negative stuff. Is there any harmless porn? No doubt. Does a vast portion of it depict women in a degrading manner? Yes. And there are a lot of men out there spending A LOT of time looking at it. It's like Mel Gibson's personal copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. If you spend enough time exposing yourself to images and literature that degrades a certain group, it impacts you. In the case of porn, the use is so ubiquitous that it helps create an entire rape culture. And that's what we are talking about - not a museum committed to celebrating rape.